Brussels Weekender

I apologise. It has been a while since I wrote my last blog. I did promise myself when I first started this thing that I wouldn’t fall behind and it seems that I already have, and I’m only 3 weeks into my stay.
Well obviously given the title, in this blog I will talk about my quick trip to Brussels. Which was two weeks ago.
In our first week of studies we were given our timetables and discovered we had the first Friday off. My initial reaction was to plan a trip somewhere and make the most of my long weekend. And it turns out Kate had much the same idea. We decided to plan our trip together and go somewhere a bit far away, given that we had the time to travel.
I mentioned Brussels, as it was on my to do list and I knew it was only a few hours from Paris. Kate agreed and we booked our tickets. A few days before leaving we both went to the station with our Swedish friends to get a 12-25 card. This was a special discount card that gave up to 60% discount to those who were between the ages of 12 and 25, which we both fitted into nicely. The card costed 49 Euros (100AUD), which our friendly bank would late refund us for.
So we got our magical 12-25 cards and a day later we booked our tickets on the Internet. It wasn’t an extrememly low cost trip, but the tickets we did book were the cheapest available. We booked tickets from Caen to Paris and then from Paris to Brussels with about 2 hours stopover in between.
We managed to book ourselves into the last available dorms in the city. We booked at the last minute so it was extremely hard to find somewhere for 3 nights. We found beds at Vincent Van Gogh Youth Hostel, for me they had a bed for all 3 nights but Kate had to change to another dorm on the 2nd night and the change back on the 3rd.
We left on the Friday at about mid-day. Which was a convenient time and was also the cheapest train available.
I learnt a lot from just that trip there. 1. Was to make sure you eat lunch before you leave as I was starving the whole trip. 2 is to eat lunch as well as pack a baguette or something to eat as I ended up buying a single baguette roll with ham and cheese at a café in the Paris station which costed me 4 Euros (8AUD)! That’s right 8 bucks for a baguette!
In Paris we had to change stations. We arrived at St Lazarre station and had to leave from Paris North, this was task was done through the ever so complicated Paris Metro, which Kate was a gun at so we changed stations just fine. And made our way to Brussels. We managed to get ourselves those sort-after seats with the table in the middle. Which was fun and Kate and I enjoyed taking random photos of us.
I should mention that Kate is a great photographer and takes some amazing photos. When I find out how I will put a link to her blog on this sight. But for now you might just have to look her up yourselves. Kate Paneros is her name. Well Kate Panero to some, but that’s another story which ill save for a later blog. Don’t worry its really not that interesting. Anyways… Kate has a great digital camera, it’s a Canon SLR, which I would love to have, but costs a fortune.
So we ended up arriving at Brussels Midi Station where we were faced with another bloody metro we had to catch to the Hostel. We were given some pretty simple directions though and got there just fine.
It was a pretty decent hostel with some nice facilities; it had nice bathrooms (for a hostel), a bar, a kitchen and best of all it served breakfast. Whilst checking in the friendly girl at the desk gave us a terrifically helpful map, which was later used throughout the whole trip. I asked the friendly girl at reception for some nice places to eat, she pointed out some and soon after Kate and I went searching.
Well I wouldn’t say we found any ‘nice’ restaurants. I’m not too sure if we ended up finding the ones the friendly girl at reception pointed out but we came across a bussling street in a busy area filled with restaurants with every European food available. Each had its own salesmen at the front trying to entice us in by yelling out the specials, which didn’t really work in their favour as it made us walk further away. In the end we gave up on trying to find a cheap Belgian restaurant and settled on the first French restaurant we saw. Shocked at the prices, which were on the menu they first gave us, we went to walk out until they stopped us and gave us another menu, which had 2 course meals for 12 Euros. We ended up sitting down and eating. They had snails on the menu, which we decided to try. They weren’t bad, just had a bit of a slimy texture. Probably wouldn’t order them again. After dinner we made our way back to the hostel. We were shocked that there was not one waffle stall open, considering it was the capital of Belgium which is like the freaking home of waffles!
On Saturday morning we set off to spend the entire day in the city and looking at all the places, which were mentioned on the cool map that the friendly girl at reception gave us. The map was quite colourful and had highlighted all the tourist attractions of the area. It also had other attractions, which locals had suggested. The map was filled with suggestions from locals about what to see and do. Kate and I went around looking at all the interesting churched, museums, castles and palaces. We went to see the Pissing boy. Which is a statue of a Pissing Boy, funnily enough, which they use as the city’s emblem. Must admit it is quite overrated. It is a tiny little statue in the corner of a street. Every so often they put a costume on the Pissing Boy to mark any special occasions. During my brief visit he was wearing this Chinese looking costume, which I assumed was for Chinese New Years, which had ended the week earlier.
After the statue visit we made our way to The Comic Book Museum. Which was suggested on the map we had. It was pretty cool museum and was great to see something different than the usual castles and churches (which after a while start to all look the same). Belgium is home to many Comic Book artists and is where Tin Tin and the Smurfs come from. I was a big fan of Tin Tin when I was younger and all the adventures he went on, I dreamt of travelling around like him fighting all the bad guys, I probably still do…
After the comic book museum we looked around the city a bit more before making our way to the main shopping strip. We ended up having our first actual Belgium waffle from a street vendor before continuing do some shopping. Its pretty strange though as really shopping in Brussels was the same as shopping anywhere else in the Europe. They had the same shops and the same clothes. We entered our favourites, which were H&M, Zara, and Benetton, which had clothes we could afford as well as all those stores, which had clothes, we couldn’t. Zara was having their end of winter sales.
Kate and I ended up coming across a pretty funky vintage store, which was recommended in the map. It had all sorts of cool nik naks. Kate bought a Vinyl Record of Tin Tin as a Valentines gift for her boyfriend Danny. I should mention that that day was actually Valentines Day. For me, I didn’t think much of it being single, but I suppose it would have been quite strange, and a bit upsetting for Kate spending Valentines Day in Brussels with Me. From the funky vintage store I found some leather gloves, which were 8 Euros, which I bought. BARGAIN! They were pretty big gloves so the previous owner must have had some pretty big hands because the gloves were even a bit lose on me. Well you know what they say about big hands… big gloves… After buying them I was able to return the pair, which I was borrowing, from Kate. She had bought a new pair when she first arrived in France so I was borrowing her old ones, which I think she prefers more. Kate two has some pretty big hands. (No innuendo intended there at all FYI)
After the shopping spree we tried once more to find the nice places to eat which were recommended to us. But once again couldn’t. We found a street, which was lined with Thai Restaurants and thought we would eat some Thai as we hadn’t eaten any Asian food for a while. I ended up just ordering the Vegetarian Tom Yum as I wasn’t that hungry. It really wasn’t that great and actually just tasted like tomato soup as it had an overly bearing tomatoey taste. In the end I had to order water, which costed the same as my soup.
Over dinner we decided that we would leave Brussels the next day, As we had already seen a lot that day and wanted to save on the extra nights accommodation and eating out expenses. After we had arrived back at the hostel and Kate checked into her new dorm we used the ever so expensive Internet to book the tickets home. We then discovered what a bastard it was to book tickets on the Internet. We first checked the prices for the Brussels to Paris trip which were at the reasonable price of 35 euro (70 AUD) we then found a train at a good time and price from Paris to Caen which we booked but when we went back to book the Brussels to Paris train it had gone up to 80 Euros (160AUD), which was definitely out of our price range. We ended up having to book a train, which left quite early in the afternoon and which meant we had a 4-hour stop over in Paris.
After our ordeal with the Internet booking we concluded we were both still a bit hungry and went out to explore the surrounding area and find somewhere to eat. The surrounding area was quite ethnic, and by ethnic I mean Eastern and by Eastern I mean… well you know… I say this because one day I mentioned the word Ethnic to lady who stopped my in my tracks and said ‘ Well honey, we are all ethnic!’ but I'm sure you who are reading this know what I mean. Anyways… we stopped at a nice restaurant and shared a pide. After this we made our way back to the hostel and went to sleep.
The next day we woke up had our complementary breakfast, which consisted of a hot chocolate, 5 slices of bread, a bowl of cornflakes, a slice of cheese, an orange ‘juice’ (pretty much orange cordial) and a selection of spreads. We checked out of our dorms and did some more exploring. We first though we would make our way back to the city to do a bit more shopping.
This plane came to a quick halt when we discovered that shops don’t actually open in Brussels on Sundays!! I don’t know about you but I was pretty surprised when I discovered that Brussels, the capital of Belgium… the country, also regarded at the capital of Europe… the continent, had no Sunday trading. I myself think that shops should be shut on Sundays as this is the day people should be spending with their families but I also do find it convenient having shops open on a Sunday, especially when there was a particular wallet I wanted to buy that I had discovered the day before… talk about buyers remorse…
As I just mentioned Brussels is claimed to be the Capital of Europe and I can understand why. First there’s its location, located in the middle of northern Europe it’s only a few hours from France, Germany, Netherlands, Luxembourg, England and Switzerland. There’s also the fact that everyone speaks both French and Dutch. The whole atmosphere of the city was very European as it sort of encompasses both the traditional Europe with its many churches and places and Modern Europe as it also has many skyscrapers and modern buildings. So its no surprise that the EU made it the home of their Headquarters and Parliament which we went to see that day.
The European Headquarters is a bit of an eyesore. It’s a tall modernish looking building with no interesting features. The Parliament was designed a bit better, it also had a modern architecture but had a more distinctive design and a pretty cool look. After Kate and I checked out both these buildings we went to the station to catch our train.

At the train Station we discovered we could not pick up our tickets! We had booked our tickets using a French website, using a French company which did not operate from the train station!! ARG! We did chose on the website that we were purchasing the tickets in Belgium. The company expected us to go to their one office located in the city, which was CLOSED on Sundays. And considering it was Sunday it made getting the tickets quite impossible. Our only option was to rebook the tickets and pay again. Luckily after we booked the new tickets, which were luckily at the same price I was able to call the company using by broken French and cancel the tickets so they wouldn’t charge my credit card… fewf…
So we ended up getting on an even earlier train from Paris to Brussels. At Paris we went to pick up the tickets to Caen, we asked at the desk if we were able to get an earlier train, the ticketer Lady said we were able to but it would cost another 7 euro each, which we were both happy to pay as it meant it would get us home earlier, at that stage we were going to face a 5 hour Parisian stop-over. So we changed stations to St-Lazarre and bordered the train to Caen where we caught the tram back home to Euro Residence were went both went to bed a bit early.

So that’s my Brussels trip… I apologise if it wasn’t adventurous enough for you. Don’t worry there are still more adventures to come. I’m still yet to write about this weekend's random adventures in Paris, which I promise I will write about soon.
I hope to return to Brussels in spring or summer, the city was very quiet in winter and not everything was open. I learnt a lot from this trip. I learnt things that would prepare me for my future adventures. In the future I will defiantly pack more food and book more in advance. I also decided that I didn’t really want to do much more travel until the warmer weather sets in. There wasn’t really any major reason for me to travel straight away. I had a whole year ahead of me and I want to see everything when it’s at is best. Which defiantly wasn’t during winter…

Intercultural Toilet Behaviour

On this trip I have been noticing many cultural habits of my neighbours from other countries. Usually small subtle things like kissing the cheek twice and being late to everything.

One aspect of culture, which I had never really though about was toilet behaviour. Kate thought she had a cultural toilet because on the floor in front of hers was a Cosmopolitan in Latvian. Well she had nothing on what I experienced. One morning I started my day with the usual trip to the bathroom. I sat down and discovered there was something new and different in the toilet room, and it wasn’t a Brazilian FHM. It was a clear plastic bag with rubbish inside of it. Being the nosey mischievous person that I am I peered inside, only to discover there was scrunched up toilet paper soiled with Brazilian skid marks.
I can’t remember my initial reaction. I think I had just smiled to myself. I had travelled to South-East Asia previously and knew that there you have to put used toilet paper in the bin, as they don’t have the plumbing system to sustain toilet paper.
I remember telling Kate and my Swedish friends who thought it was hilarious, all thought it was funny but like myself, was understanding as that was the Brazilian culture and what they had grown up doing all their life.
However, for the next 11 months I wasn’t about to put up with having dirty smelly toilet paper next to me every time I took a trip to the toilet so I raised the issue with my Brazilian friends. I think they were a bit startled and confused when I told them they could flush toilet paper here. I explained to them that they do it in Australia and pretty much in all the developed nations in the world. Still a bit dazed and confused they eventually understood as they had another Brazilian friend with them, who had been living in France for 6 months already, who could translate what I was saying. They guy’s name was Tiago. Tiago looked at me and said he had always flushed.

I sigh of relief came over me as I had know I had dealt with a highly awkward situation. Probably the first awkward situation of my trip but it will defiantly be one of many….

Making a House a Home.

When I first walked into my apartment in Eurorisendence I was greeted by the refreshing smell of fresh paint and the glissening shine of nice newly painted white glossy walls. andThe floor a blue thick vinal material. I first walked into the shared living area that had a table and one chair in the centre and a small kitchen on the right which only had a fridge a small oven top with two elements, a shelf and a set of flimsly shelves.
It was very basic. I was later informed that having a table was considered a luxury in Euro residence let a lone the black bucketed share I had also.
My room had a simple desk chair and bed. It had a small built in wardrobe which was just big enough to fit in all my clothes. It also had a sink. There was no sink in the bathroom so there was one in each bedroom. Which is a good idea as it lets you go through your morning rituals alone, without having any ‘sectret life of us’ moments where all flat mates are in the bathroom together brushing their teeth talking about who they last slept with. The sink looked pretty new and modem and had flight on top of the mirror as if it were some dressing table for some movie star.
The bed was in a strange position between the sink and the cupboard and the beside table was just sitting in the middle of the room. I later discovered that the last tenant had kindly left a few condom wrappers in the draw of the bedside table. My bed must have gotten quite a work out before I arrived. Or maybe not considering the condoms had not been used.
Kate and I had ‘better homes and gardens moments’ where we moved my furniture around and redecorated my room. The aparment didn’t come with and bedding so we had to go to the supermarket for that. I just chose the cheapest one there. Its quite difficult buying bedding in another language. It took me to trips to the supermarket as the first time I bough the back that didn’t have a quilt cover and only a fitted sheet which I already had.
The room which needed the most attention in the house was the kitchen. I enjoy cooking and having one 2 cook tops really doesn’t suffice for me. A few days after I moved my brazillian room mates bought a microwave. I am not the biggest fan of microwave and only usually use them for reheating. For the brazillians the microwave was there lively hood. Not knowing how to cook, assumably because they were babied by their mothers their whole life’s, the only thing they started to eat was frozen meals.
A few days after they bought the microwave I decided to splurge out and by a small cooker. I discovered one at the supermarket for 60 euros and thought it would be worth it in the end. So I bought it. The kitchen was looking a big squished together as we had a lot of utensils and plates and appliances but only one flimsly shelve to put it on. They Brazilians already had put the microwave on top of the fridge and I didn’t trust the oven on the flimsy shelves for fear it would break it. So for the time being I just left it on the ground and when I needed to use it I just placed it on the table, which I dragged towards a powerpoint.
Then one day, when I was in kate’s room using her internet. She pointed out to me a hard rubbish area, near the trash bins of the apartment building. In this trash bin was a metal set of shelves and a small card table. I took a mental note and on my way back from a jog that afternoon I had a closer look at them and decided to take them. They were quite lite and I was able to carry them both. I gave them both a good whipe down but neither was extremely dirty. I took everything off the flimsy wooden shelves and put it on the metal shelf. I also put the small oven on the metal shelf as it was a lot sturdier than the wooden one. I moved the wooden shelf closer to the middle of the room and am using now for liter objects like plate, cutlery and mugs. The card table is quite low to the growned and placed this under the window.
After I did all this I looked back and this feeling came over me that I had finally made my apartment my home. The way it was before really didn’t reflect my ideal housing situation but now I couldn’t think of anything better. I have a nice room which is the biggest room I have ever had, and a nice enough living areas (Well it’s a table and a chair but for EuroResidence that’s pretty swave) and a pretty complete kitchen. What more could I ask for...???

The unpleasant arrival to Charles de Gaule

One word of advice to everyone. DON’T FLY BRITISH AIRWAYS. I have learnt my lesson and I hope you all can learn from my mistakes. My flight from Singapore to London was quite pleasant with Qantas, besides the in flight entertainment not working in the final hours, I managed to get some movies in, sleep for about 7 hours and stare at bland screen for a couple also. I arrived in London, boarded the bus to change terminals and arrived at my departure date, where I waited a bit and was informed that my plane would depart 30 minutes late. FINE! I thought, this didn’t faze me in the least as my flight was scheduled to arrive at 9.40am and the airport pick up the university has arranged wasn’t until 1pm so I had plenty of time. Well that’s what I thought. So we ended up boarding the plane about 1 hour late, but again, I wasn’t worried much as I still had ample time to catch the bus HOWEVER, after we boarded the plane, myself and all the passengers on board were informed that there was ice on the wings which was dangerous, so we had to wait for it to be washed off and then we had to wait for air traffic control to find us another place in the que for departure. Again, still wasn’t that worried but after an hour waiting on the plane and it seriously not going anywhere I started to STRESS. So about 3 and a half hours after its scheduled departure time the plane finally departed. I arrived at about 12.30, which only gave me 30 minutes to get to the bus which was leaving from another terminal. Luckily before I had left I had texted my friend Kate, a student from UniSA who was doing the same program as me in France, and informed her that I would be late. After I arrived I switched on my phone to a message from Kate that read ‘ don’t stress we are waiting for other people to arrive also’. This comforted me a bit as I waited for my luggage to arrive. However after waiting half hour for my luggage to arrive I then went to luggage services to see where my luggage was, I then qued in that line for about half an hour to find out where my luggage was.

Well there was one good part of my story, in front of me was Canadian model and writer, Tara Moss, who I began speaking to and telling my story. After hearing my story her and her husband let me go in front of them. I must say that they both were extremely nice people, and coped with the situation a lot better that me AND she does look EVEN hotER in real life than she does on television or in magazines. Throughout the whole trip she kept her cool, smiled politely and kept combing her fingers across her hair as models do. So BA told me that my luggage was lost, SUPRISE... SUPRISE... I gave them my address in caen where they told me they would send it to me and left to meet Kate, who was waiting for me outside the arrivals gate. I had a look of frustration and anger so the customs guy didn't dare check my carry on. For fear i would be practicing my french sware words. I hurried out the arrivals gate and met Kate. Kate took me to the bus to the terminal where everyone was waiting for me and we left to go to Caen...

Singapore - The land of many

Have you ever had that feeling where it has finally dawned on you that there really are over 6 billion people in the world. This fact finally dawned on me when I walked out of the little India MRT sation on a Sunday evening and called see hundreds, if not thousand of Indian men in my sight, as I walked around I saw even more. Some Singaporean friends of mine explained later that Sunday is the day off for all the labourers in Singapore, who are mostly Indian and they all hang out in Little India on this day. Its was SOOOOO Hectic. Sasha and I turned to each other and had the same idea that we really didn’t need to go to India now, because if it was as Hectic as this we just wouldn’t be interested. The thing that surprised us the most was that there was not one Indian woman in site. In traditional Indian culture the woman always stayed home and it was the role of the husband to work and carry out all the chores outside of the house. Sasha and I went shopping at a discount store and we even saw an Indian man buying clothing and bras for his wife. And it wasn’t the sexy lingerie kind either.

It is a land of many contrasts Singapore, You have little India in one part of the island, looking just like India. Chinatown is in another part of the island, filled with Chinese culture, shops and food. And then you can catch the MRT from anyone of these locations and you find yourself in a Cosmopolitan wonderland filled with anything and everything high-tec and new age, filled with all the high-end brands. I think this is what I like the most about Singapore, it fills like you have the intire contenent of Asia all on one small island. I enjoy the cultural aspects that the country has to offer but equally enjoy its modernism, it shopping and its architecture. Another great aspect of Singapore is the people. I have only a few Singaporean friends, but all of them jumped at the chance to show me around and show off the wonderful city which they all seem proud of.
I borded the plane, as I left Singapore with a happy feeling, I was glad I had taken the time out of my trip to see the city and spend time with some friends. Its not everyday you get the opportunity just to pop into Singapore. A feeling of anxiousness also had drawn upon me as I realised my adventures had begun and once I got of the plane again I would be in another amazing land.